coding-agent-harness

Coding Agent Harness

English | 简体中文 | 日本語 | 한국어 | Français | Español | Deutsch

Coding agents can write code quickly. The annoying part starts later: one session made a plan, another changed files, and the next agent has to guess what is still risky.

Coding Agent Harness keeps that work in the repo: plans, progress, reviews, migration notes, and a dashboard that shows the current state.

What It Looks Like

The harness is just files plus a local dashboard.

• AGENTS.md tells the next agent how this repo works.
• task_plan.md, progress.md, and review.md keep the task from turning into chat history.
• Checks and migration reports say what is safe, what is stale, and what still needs a human decision.
• harness dev opens the dashboard for everyday review.

The Loop

Step	Human Experience	Agent / CLI Surface
Install	Give the agent one entrypoint.	npx skills add FairladyZ625/coding-agent-harness --skill coding-agent-harness
Start	The agent scans first, then proposes an init or migration plan.	npx --yes coding-agent-harness init ... or migrate-plan
Review	Open the dashboard and check the task state.	npx --yes coding-agent-harness dev .
Verify	Run checks before handoff.	npx --yes coding-agent-harness check --profile target-project .

Try It In A Project

Use npx first. It does not add the CLI to your project dependencies.

npx --yes coding-agent-harness init --locale en-US --capabilities core,dashboard .
npx --yes coding-agent-harness dev .
npx --yes coding-agent-harness check --profile target-project .

For Chinese templates:

npx --yes coding-agent-harness init --locale zh-CN --capabilities core,dashboard .

If you want a static evidence snapshot instead of the live local workbench:

npx --yes coding-agent-harness dashboard --out-dir tmp/harness-dashboard .
open tmp/harness-dashboard/index.html

What The Agent Reads

Harness is ordinary repository content. There is no database to run.

AGENTS.md
docs/
  03-ARCHITECTURE/
  04-DEVELOPMENT/
  05-TEST-QA/
  09-PLANNING/TASKS/
  10-WALKTHROUGH/
  11-REFERENCE/

Typical task files:

task_plan.md
execution_strategy.md
visual_map.md
progress.md
review.md
lesson_candidates.md

Humans scan the dashboard. Agents read the files. That is the whole trick.

Language Support

Language	Public intro	README / guides	Executable templates
English	Full	Full	Full
Simplified Chinese	Full	Full	Full
Japanese	Intro	Routing only	Use English templates
Korean	Intro	Routing only	Use English templates
French	Intro	Routing only	Use English templates
Spanish	Intro	Routing only	Use English templates
German	Intro	Routing only	Use English templates

Intro-only pages are deliberately small. Agent-executable templates stay in English and Simplified Chinese first, because stale translated instructions are worse than no translation.

Good Fit

This is useful when:

• agents work on real repositories for days or weeks;
• multiple agents or developers share the same project;
• task state, review evidence, and regression results need to survive across sessions;
• an existing project has old plans, migration notes, or scattered agent instructions;
• the important parts of AI work should not live only in chat logs.

Install The Skill

If your agent supports Skills:

npx skills add FairladyZ625/coding-agent-harness --list
npx skills add FairladyZ625/coding-agent-harness --skill coding-agent-harness

Install into the global Codex skill directory:

npx skills add FairladyZ625/coding-agent-harness \
  --skill coding-agent-harness \
  --agent codex \
  --global \
  -y

Agents should not silently run a global npm install. If a long-lived harness command is desired, ask the human first:

npm install -g coding-agent-harness
harness --help

Agent Prompt

Send this to an agent inside your target project:

Install and read Coding Agent Harness first:

npx skills add FairladyZ625/coding-agent-harness --skill coding-agent-harness

First diagnose the project structure, then give me an initialization or migration plan.
Do not overwrite existing business docs, historical tasks, regression records, or user changes.

Use npx unless I explicitly approve a global npm install:
npx --yes coding-agent-harness <command>

After confirmation, execute Diagnose -> Decide -> Scaffold -> Configure -> Verify -> Deliver.
When finished, report created files, check results, Dashboard URL or HTML path, and recommended next steps.

Learn More

• Docs release index: docs-release/README.md
• Agent installation guide: docs-release/guides/agent-installation.en-US.md
• Architecture overview: docs-release/architecture/overview.md
• Migration playbook: docs-release/guides/migration-playbook.en-US.md
• Operating models: docs-release/guides/repository-operating-models.en-US.md
• Minimal project example: examples/minimal-project/

Star History

License

MIT